Uh oh. In some ways this was inevitable; as Android’s taken up market share, it’s also got the attention of malware writers. Quite a lot of attention, as it turns out.
A Juniper networks report indicates that Android Malware has increased by a rather alarming amount in the past few months; a Juniper blog specifies exactly what the problem is:
What happens when anyone can develop and publish an application to the Android Market? A 472% increase in Android malware samples since July 2011. These days, it seems all you need is a developer account, that is relatively easy to anonymize, pay $25 and you can post your applications. With no upfront review process, no one checking to see that your application does what it says, just the world’s largest majority of smartphone users skimming past your application’s description page with whatever description of the application the developer chooses to include.
It’s particularly alarming on top of the recent news that a large number of Android anti-malware apps don’t seem to work particularly well. [Juniper via PC Magazine]